


Those Prayers Will Make You Bleed

by SongAboutExiles



Category: Black Sails
Genre: First Time, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-02-21 20:37:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13151586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: My attempt, after months in fandom, to do justice to the night that comes after That Kiss, and every one after. There is angst galore for us, but they are still living in blissful ignorance.**"You will be the death of me, James McGraw."James laughed again, softly, and just said, "Do hurry up, love."**





	1. I'm Mystified by the Ways of Your Heart

James felt that feather-light kiss skate across his lips, dimly aware that Miranda was gone, that he was truly alone with Thomas in this imposing room, this room where he'd just made possibly the most unwise career decision in history. No, felt was the wrong word, and right now words were simultaneously useless and of the utmost import. He resonated with it, Thomas' gentle, enormous hand cradling his cheek like he was infinitely precious. 

When Thomas retreated, there was a touch of anxiety in those beautiful blue eyes. Had he gone too far? Had he, after everything, assumed wrongly? 

That question simply could not stand. James couldn't bear to see the conflict in those eyes, to know that he was the cause of even a moment's pain. He leaned in, up, letting Thomas' hand support the weight of his head as he turned his face to the side and returned the kiss. 

It was still a soft thing, newborn and quavering with so much promise and so much heart-aching intensity. This was everything, this was his Thomas, so far above him and yet right now, right here caught by his lips. The sweet sound Thomas made went right to his heart, twisting it up and catching it fast in a grip that James knew would never find release. 

"James." Thomas smiled against his lips, then nuzzled along his jaw to his ear, making him shiver as he murmured, "Come with me." One of those elegant hands twined with his own, soft palm against hard calluses, and Thomas slowly led him from the big, empty room, up the stairs, down the hall. 

He'd never been up here before, but he knew it was the way to Thomas' room, to privacy, to...something more. That's where his imagination greyed out - he knew what two men did together, of course he did, but Thomas was not just some man, and James had led a cautious life alone with his unnaturalness. Ridiculously, he felt like a bride on her wedding night, half-prepared with whispers and a lurid imagination, but nothing about Thomas was crude or cruel. 

Once inside, door closed against prying eyes and curious servants, Thomas looked at James and laughed softly. James realised that some of his nerves must be showing on his face, and he blushed to the tips of his ears. "You are so beautiful, James. And I have wanted to say as much for months. Since the first moment you walked into my world."

"All you needed to do was crook your finger and I would have followed you anywhere," James admitted. "Possibly arguing the entire way." 

"I should hope so. My contentious love." Thomas just said the words, as though they didn't bring the whole world crashing down around them again. A kiss, a word, and suddenly this was a love affair.

If James were honest with himself, it always was a love affair, one executed with excruciating slowness and no small amount of self-doubt on his part as he came to understand that the fact that he hated to be apart from James was more than a simple enjoyment of the other man's company. It was so patently obvious now, that Miranda had seen what they were too wary to admit, that she had brought them together here, now. What must have that cost her?

"Do you? Love me? Because I am helplessly, utterly in love with you." James' voice caught on the words, the truest words he'd ever spoken. 

"I do. Oh God, I do." Thomas crossed the room in two long-legged steps, taking James into his arms as if he understood what those words meant. 

James clung tightly, acutely aware of the feeling of Thomas' body moulded to his, those long arms around his back, thigh to thigh. "I want more. Tell me what more looks like, Thomas." 

"It looks like you and me, in my bed. Our bed." Thomas hooked a finger gently under James' chin and pulled his face up until their eyes met. 

Of course it did, James thought, but wasn't this the rankest perversion? The most unnatural act? Would it sully this brightness, this clarity, this purity? "I'm afraid." James knew exactly what that admission cost him. 

"Of me?" Thomas asked, slowly withdrawing to begin unbuttoning his coat. So many layers between them. So much propriety. "No one has ever been afraid of me before."

"No, no..." James reached out and touched Thomas' hands, stilling them so that he could resume the task. "I'm most afraid of myself. That I'll make this...ugly."

"Still listening to those pinched, joyless old men in your head?" Thomas stood passively, allowing James to divest him of his coat. "Don't. Inside these four walls is our world. Our reality. How could the most beautiful man I have ever met be anything other than incandescent in his pleasure?"

James stopped still at that, hushing every voice in his head but Thomas'. "I have no idea what to do with this very fine coat, Thomas." 

"Drop it on the bloody floor." Thomas was suddenly in his space, filling it, and the heavy cloth fell from his fingers as his mouth was claimed in a kiss that was fiercely tender, Thomas' tongue pressing into his mouth for the first time. James gasped and grabbed at Thomas' arms, letting him in as something dark and joyous bloomed deep in his belly. 

His tongue slid along Thomas', and this much, this he knew. Or thought he knew, because everything Thomas touched was new again. But he persevered, letting his mind fill with nothing but the kiss, the rough-gentle give and take of it, the heady thrill when Thomas suckled on his tongue and every pull had spikes that settled deeper into his belly, filling his cock. 

Thomas' thigh was right there, between his, pressed up against him, and James moved his hips restlessly, rubbing himself unconsciously against the firm muscle. When he realised what he was doing he stopped, flushing again - rubbing at Thomas like a cat in heat? Surely he could do better than that. If only he could get his mind working properly again. 

It didn't much seem like Thomas was overly invested in thought at the moment, though, because he just gripped James' ass and pulled him in tight again. "God, I want you, my love. I want to see you splayed out on my bed, aching with need, hungry for my touch. Can you give me that? Will you?" The words were said right against his over-sensitised, spit-slick and swollen lips. 

"Anything," he managed to choke out. "I would give you anything. Everything." His career, his life, his head on a silver plate. 

"Then I suggest we get rid of these damnable clothes, yes?" Thomas was strong enough to pull away. James nodded and some intolerable, interminable time later they faced each other, naked and aroused, fair skin flushed. He'd never seen anything as captivating, as enchanting, as Thomas' flesh. Every freckle was some kind of divine revelation, and he had to chuckle softly at himself at the ridiculous thought. 

"I love to hear you laugh." Thomas closed the distance again and if looking had been divine, the sensation of skin on skin was almost transcendental. "Nothing but laughter and pleasure in our bed."

"The things you say." James ate up every word, then turned his mouth to Thomas' again, aware the other man was backing him up to the bed. The soft mattress hit the back of his thighs and he let himself be pushed ever so carefully up onto it, then onto his back. 

Thomas crawled up after him, on him, stopping for only a moment to drink in the sight, looking like a starving man sidling up to his first meal in weeks. James' cock jerked against his belly at the naked hunger of it, and he found his thighs spreading to make room for Thomas on top of him. 

"There's so much I want to do, but I don't want to stop kissing you," Thomas laughed breathily, catching James' mouth again as it opened on a gasp when their cocks slid together. He fit just so between James' legs, like it was a space he was born to fill. 

James' hands ran down Thomas' back, relishing the shift and play of muscles as Thomas thrust forward, driving them closer together still. "Can you..." God, how to say this sweetly, properly, especially when he had to force out each word around another kiss? "I want everything." 

"Me inside you?" Thomas stopped kissing him just long enough to ask, to look down on James with his outrageous red hair tangled beneath his head. 

James nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak. It was too enormous a thing, too intimate. And here he was, giving it away.

"You astonish me." Thomas' voice was reverent, but James didn't understand why - he was just offering himself to the man he loved. Wasn't that what one did? Perverse or not? "It's a good thing I can accomplish that without having to stop kissing you." 

Thomas hugged him close and rolled them on the bed till he could reach into the bedside table for a small pot of salve. He just set it on the bed but James was achingly aware of its presence, For the first time, he felt a keen emptiness, and his hole clenched on nothing. It made him moan.

That moan was swallowed, and then returned when Thomas pressed two fingers to his lips. "Suck on them, darling. Get them nice and slick." James gripped Thomas' wrist and took his fingers inside, aware of the act he was imitating and all the more aroused for the knowledge. Oh, he would have to get Thomas in his mouth, and soon. But for now, he suckled on those long, dexterous fingers and shuddered when Thomas' cock jerked against his own, slick spurting against him. 

"God, your mouth..." Thomas pulled his fingers free and cradled James in the crook of one arm, close and safe and eminently kissable. 

"I liked that. A great deal," James murmured, spreading his thighs again, eagerly. Whatever this act made him feel, he wanted it. Even if it made him feel dirty and wrong. But how could that be when he and Thomas were making this sorcery between them? 

"You'll like this, too," Thomas reassured him, tracing those fingers across his tight pucker, rubbing lightly until James felt his cock swell even harder. Every rub and glide across his entrance went right to his balls. Soon he felt himself opening in anticipation of each pass over his hole, and oh it was obscene. Obscenely good. 

"Feels..." What, good? Well, yes, but that was a wan, generic word for what he was experiencing. The sunlight on his face felt good. This was something else entirely. "Like I need more of you in me."

Thomas groaned and reached for the salve, managing to flip open the top and slick his fingers with one hand. It was a bit of a messy affair, but his determination to keep his hold on James at any cost was incredibly endearing. "You will be the death of me, James McGraw."

James laughed again, softly, and just said, "Do hurry up, love."

"You mean...like this?" Thomas nuzzled at his lips as one finger slid inside, slow and patient, and James found himself acclimating to the strangeness of it with a downright unseemly alacrity. He felt the fullness, clenched and relaxed around it, knowing it was but a shadow of what he would soon feel filling him. 

"You are a wonder," Thomas breathed against his lips. "So hot inside, so perfect and tight." A second finger joined the first, and there was the slightest of burns, a friction that felt so good, like scratching a scab that was driving him mad with its infernal itchiness. 

James grinned ferally and clenched down hard on the invading fingers, thoroughly enjoying the noise it pulled out of Thomas. "Tight enough?" he asked innocently. 

Thomas stopped his words with another kiss and his fingers searched deep to find that sweet spot, rubbing against it and smiling against James' lips when his hips shot up off the bed and a low, animal noise spilled from him. "Fuck," James mumbled. "More. Please."

"Indeed." Thomas' voice was a mess of amusement and rough arousal. 

James growled at the third finger that filled him up. It just wasn't enough. God help him, he needed Thomas' thick cock rubbing up against that place in him, not more fingers. He needed his lover in him. "Now." 

The fingers disappeared, and the sound of Thomas slicking himself amply with the salve was obscenely arousing. He shifted atop James, and then there he was, the broad head penetrating slowly, achingly slowly. James' eyes practically rolled back in his head. There was pain, of course there was, but it was somehow a delicious pain, and it faded well before Thomas was in him balls-deep to be replaced with the most uncanny sense of rightness. 

Thomas' mouth was on his again as he found a firm, gentle rhythm that didn't take him far from James. James found his heels riding up the backs of Thomas' thighs as he encouraged him - harder, deeper. Thomas experimented a few times with different angles until James cried out when he found the perfect one. 

Ever the perfectionist, Thomas repeated that angle over and over, and James was lost. Utterly, irrevocably lost. This felt like the most natural thing he'd ever experienced, and it felt like coming home. Soon, he realised that he could lift his hips into the thrusts, and from there it was simply madness. Nothing should feel so good, but he clung to Thomas and drowned his cries in the other man's waiting mouth. They were joined, as close as two humans could possibly be, and James was simply gone. 

It was a very good thing that this was love, because to James, for James, this was simply it. He couldn't imagine being this close to another person. 

Thomas' hips stuttered and he groaned. "Fuck, James, perfect, so perfect..." The knowledge that he was the one who'd undone this beautiful man drove him suddenly, unexpectedly, right over the edge. His orgasm wrung him, but instead of feeling cored out or hollow, he felt full of light, like it was going to burst through his skin and put the candles in the room to shame. 

It was a shock to Thomas, apparently, just as much as it was to him, and it was all Thomas could do to bury himself deep one last time as his own climax scoured through him. James had thought several times that night that he'd never seen anything more beautiful than Thomas, but this time...this time he knew it was indisputably true. This was bliss. 

When it passed, James suddenly tightened his grip on Thomas, his heels digging hard into the man's ass to keep him exactly where he was. He wasn't ready for this, he could muzzily admit that in hindsight, but he would never be parted from James again if he had any say in the matter. 

Thomas pressed his forehead to James'. "I do love you so. It is an ache in my soul."

James, less poetic, simply replied, "And I love you."

Thomas would know what those four simple words meant. He'd seen it, felt it, been part of it. He was half a whole now. 

And God help anyone who would try to put them asunder.


	2. Bathe You in Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and James spend a lazy, grey day in bed.

Bathe You in Grace

Light was just light. Wasn't it? James had always thought so. It was something to keep a weather eye on while at sea, and on land it just existed. Part of the landscape. Nothing to get romantic about.

And yet. There was something different about the light itself when he was with Thomas. A grey afternoon wasn't dull and cheerless when they spent it tangled in each other's arms, making love and reading to each other. No, it was soft, it was gentle. And when the sun broke through the clouds and cast its rays across Thomas' sleeping form it was pure grace from above. 

If he believed in such things.

He believed in Thomas, and if that was blasphemy he really could not care less. 

James looked down at Thomas, splayed across more than his fair share of the bed flat on his back, and smiled the smile that had already become Thomas' alone. He couldn't fathom how a human being could be so beautiful, but there it was. 

Part of him wished he could just let Thomas sleep, but another, more insistent voice whispered in his head that this would be the perfect opportunity to pleasure his man. Thomas had been so assiduous, so careful, to do most of the work in their lovemaking, and James thought he deserved more. Wanted to give him more. Everything, would make a good start. 

Oh, but he knew what he wanted most. What he craved, without even sparing a thought for what that craving made him. Those ideas of what was right and proper died the moment Thomas first pushed inside him, so tenderly that if he weren't so bloody aroused he would have cried. 

He slid his callused palm down Thomas' belly, below the covers, to find his cock soft and heavy against his thigh. A hissed breath quietly escaped his lips as he followed that hand with his mouth, pushing the sheet down just enough to fearlessly lick a stripe from the base of Thomas' thick prick up to the tip. When his eyes flitted up to see if Thomas had awakened, he found those patient blue eyes watching him. 

"Shh, do as you wish," Thomas murmured, letting his fingers comb through James' hair gently. "Anything you wish."

All James wanted was to bask in that gaze, to watch the lazy spiral of arousal he saw there ignite into a fucking bonfire. He rubbed his head back against Thomas' fingers and slowly took Thomas' cock into his mouth. Soft, he was sweet on the tongue, more delectable than any meal he could ever remember eating. But James didn't want him soft. No, he wanted that thick hardness to fill his mouth, to push down into his throat. He wanted the bonfire. The fact that he had never done this before seemed almost inconsequential. There were few tasks in life that James had failed to figure out when the need was greatest. 

James bobbed his head and sucked, knowing enough to keep his teeth out of the way, relishing the sensation of the foreskin sliding back and forth in his mouth and laving his tongue over the exposed head when he reached the top. In moments, he got his wish--Thomas grew hard and long and thick in his mouth--and he had to grasp the base in his hand to suckle at what he could fit in his mouth.

Thomas gasped a low 'god, James' and his fingers tightened minutely in James' hair. He hummed in agreement because this was so good, too good, and he felt himself stir to aching hardness. The spike of arousal made him want more, more, more. He desired nothing more than to get that gorgeous cock down another inch, and another, until he gagged on it. 

"Shh, sweetheart, you're perfect." Thomas' voice was shaking, and every muscle seemed frozen in an attempt not to buck up into that glorious heat. 

James had his doubts on that (he would always have his doubts on that) but it didn't stop him from trying to get his mouth all the way down on Thomas' prick. Soon enough, he'd worked out that if he swallowed at just that point, yes, that one, he could do it. And breathe, through his nose. Mustn't forget to breathe, no matter how breathtaking Thomas was.

It was awkward for the first few up-and-down sucks, but then he found it, the rhythm of it, and his eyes flicked up to Thomas' face to drown in those lust-darkened blue eyes. Thomas had one hand fisted in the sheets and another in James' once again tangled red hair, and he was breathing like a blown horse. Oh yes, that would do quite nicely.

His eyes were glued to Thomas', and he worked his mouth and throat around his cock like he needed it to survive. It was so fucking intimate, having Thomas like this, and he was already calling himself an avowed cocksucker in his head, chuckling minutely when he heard it in the voice of some dusty old lord looking down his nose at them in horror. Those men, they were funny now. James knew there was some danger in finding them so, but what were they compared to this?

Suddenly Thomas' eyes went wide and he whispered, "James, I'm so close. So very very close." 

Bewildered, James just sucked harder, faster, because what else would he do? The only thing he wanted right now was for Thomas to fill his mouth with his seed, to taste it at last, because he was sure beyond almost anything that he would love it. 

One last time he slid his mouth up to the tip, sucking firmly just at the vulnerable, tender, exposed head of Thomas' cock. Thomas cried out his name, unashamed, and James got another wish fulfilled when the man bucked up despite himself in his ecstasy, coming and coming into James' waiting mouth. The taste was as divine as he'd imagined, and he swallowed it all right down.

When Thomas was spent, he crawled up the long body and nuzzled at his lips, looking for a kiss but not sure Thomas would want one. A foolish notion, because Thomas just looked at him like he was some kind of god and claimed his mouth in a kiss made James rub his aching cock against Thomas' thigh and moan helplessly. 

"I love you, I love you, I love you," Thomas said over and over against James' lips until he finally calmed enough to form coherent words. "No, sweetheart, stop..." One hand cupped James' arse and held him still, stopped his mindless rutting. "I want to show you something."

"Something else?" Was there anything at this point they hadn't done? 

"Oh yes. There is so much more." Thomas would, however, have to stop kissing him at some point, unless the 'more' could be accomplished just like this. Finally, Thomas made himself pull away and murmured, "Lie down on your belly for me?" 

James looked at him with a muzzy, quizzical lust and forced himself to move away from Thomas' heat to comply, stretching his body out and moving his hips against the soft sheet. He was surprised when Thomas pulled his arse up and put a pillow underneath him. His thighs parted naturally, and he felt exposed to Thomas' gaze. But rather than embarrassing him, it only made him slide his thighs farther apart. 

"Dear God, James. You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." Thomas draped himself over James' body, murmuring directly into his ear. "And now I want to worship you." More blasphemy, carelessly uttered and meant with utmost sincerity. His mouth found tender spots on the side of James' throat, along the join of his shoulder, at the back of his neck. 

"Please, Thomas..." James was shuddering, his cock leaking against the pillow, and he was harder than he ever remembered being. With Thomas, that was saying something truly profound. 

"Yes, always yes." Thomas kissed a path down James' spine. Surely he wasn't going to...was he? "Always yes." And oh, he was. James felt Thomas' clever tongue lave over his exposed pucker, firm and knowing, and suddenly James felt his head spin with dizzy lust. 

"Thomas!" Surely, his beloved couldn't want this, it was too much. And yet...and yet it was perfection. Thomas chuckled softly and plied his tongue, licking at first at the tiny bud, then suckling until James felt obscenely open, wet and hungry and desperate. He dug his knees into the bed and arched up even more, wordlessly begging.

"You are a delicacy," Thomas said, voice low and thick with his own lust. He might be spent, but he sounded like he was rallying quickly, just from doing this. Just from pushing his tongue into the lax opening, fucking James with it. It was too much and not enough, but if he kept it up much longer, he was going to make James come on his tongue. 

He flexed and tightened around Thomas' tongue, then grasped for more. His cock was a hot brand trapped between his belly and the pillow, and Thomas didn't even have to do anything. He was fucking himself on Thomas' tongue like a whore, making noises he scarcely recognised as coming from his own mouth. 

When Thomas withdrew to lick a slow path around the now-empty ring of muscle, James felt like cursing. So he did. "Fuck, Thomas, please, please, fucking need more. God, what...what are you doing to me?" Unmaking him, is what it felt like.

"I know, beloved, shh...." Thomas soothed, and James heard the sound of the pot of salve being flipped open and then two fingers pushed into all that aching emptiness. It wasn't Thomas' cock, but it felt absolutely delicious as he thrust them in and out, turning his head to bite gently at one of the firm globes of James' arse. 

James bucked up again, crying out helplessly and wordlessly when Thomas found that spot inside him and pressed against it, rubbing firmly before starting a rhythm that brushed it every time. If Thomas thought he could withstand that, he was much mistaken. James almost howled when his orgasm scoured through him, and when it finally passed he was utterly enervated, not just by the lingering shocks of pleasure but by the feelings it all engendered within him. He'd never felt so vulnerable, so laid bare, and yet Thomas made it good, made it incendiary, and as if he knew exactly what James was feeling he crawled up to take James into his arms.

"Are you well, my heart?" Thomas whispered in his ear, curled up fast against his back.

"I...am yours, Thomas. It should frighten me how much I belong to you." James found Thomas' hand with his own trembling one and kissed his knuckles, one by one. 

"We belong to each other. With each other. I am your slave, beloved." Bound forever.

"I didn't say it did frighten me, only that it should." James turned his face enough to smile at Thomas. 

"And I say that fear is a little death in and of itself, and not one that has a place in our bed." Thomas returned the smile, and it was that old, enigmatic smile that James loved so well. 

Rain spattered the windows, and the light grew even more grey. It felt cleansing, like a blessing. Because even the light was different in Thomas' arms. Chuckling at his own ridiculous romanticism, he turned in Thomas' arms so he could kiss the man, unafraid. 

"What? Let me in on the joke." Thomas' nuzzled at James' cheek.

"You'll...think I'm daft. I was thinking earlier, when you were sleeping, how even the light is different when I'm with you." James flushed a little, the curse of his fair complexion.

"It is different, though. Isn't it? Like nature herself is blessing us." Thomas smiled again, against his lips. It was ridiculous, but it was a shared madness at least. 

"Something like that. And...I like it. It makes me feel...right." James reached up to cup Thomas' stubbled cheek. "You're hard again. How can you be hard again?" 

"You really don't know what you do to me, do you?" Thomas was in no hurry to do anything about it. There was time enough. "And when you can, later, I want you inside me. Finally. I've been dying for it."

"All you had to do was ask." Although his words were nonchalant, James' heart skipped a beat at the thought. All his firsts would belong to Thomas. Just as they should. Just as they always would.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter titles taken shamelessly from Shinedown's 'How Did You Love?'


End file.
